


They All Disappear from View

by georgygirl



Series: Across the Universe [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drama & Romance, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 17:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20178376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgygirl/pseuds/georgygirl
Summary: Tony teaches Steve how to dance.Which would be fine if Steve wasn't so crazy about Tony. Now, he just hopes he doesn't make a fool of himself in front of the first crush he's had in seventy years.Takes place a few months after the Battle of New York.*REPOST*





	They All Disappear from View

**Author's Note:**

> Another repost of a story originally posted in 2015. Again, taken from a file conversion, so there may be some formatting issues I didn't catch.

* * *

At first, he thought Tony was joking.

"What?" he asked, flat and deadpan, though it masked the spike of inner panic that warned him that Tony was setting him up for a major pratfall.

"What?" Tony replied, breezy and light. "A little birdie told me you always wanted to learn how to dance. I just thought maybe—"

Steve stole a quick glance around the lab before he interrupted Tony's explanation with, "Thanks, but I can figure it out on my own."

Tony clamped his mouth shut, and if Steve's absolute refusal of his offer hurt him, he gave no indication of it. He nodded once and fiddled with something that was either a phone or a remote control or some other little black electronic that was so prevalent in this new century then said, "I think you're over-estimating your abilities, but whatever." He tossed whatever it was onto the worktable. "You don't want my help. Can't say I didn't offer it to you."

Steve let out a silent sigh and watched as Tony sat down at his computer and began to click and swipe at various things. It wasn't that he didn't want Tony's help, it was just…

Dancing? With Tony? Tony Stark? Taking dancing lessons from Tony Stark? He really wasn't sure if he could handle that.

It wasn't because he disliked Tony or didn't trust Tony. He liked Tony — and probably more than he wanted to admit to himself — and he trusted him. He wouldn't have come to depend on him out in the field if he didn't. No, this wasn't a reflection on Tony; it was all on him.

He didn't trust himself.

He'd always known that he was a bit…_bent_…he guess was the word he'd use, and he'd once naively thought the serum would fix him and _unbend _him. But it hadn't, and he'd come to accept that there were just certain things about himself that even the serum couldn't fix.

But then he'd crashed a plane in the Arctic in 1945 and woken up in New York in the new millennium, and it turned out the one thing he thought was unfixable about him wasn't wrong after all. He wasn't _bent_; he was just who he was. Bucky had always been concerned that he was setting himself up for a lifetime of misery, thinking that these perverse inclinations of his were something he could control. But he knew Bucky couldn't understand because Bucky liked the girls, and the girls liked Bucky. Bucky's fantasies had always been about soft, supple curves and light, purring voices; but Steve…well, sure, he'd had those fantasize a couple times, but he'd also fantasized about lean muscle and lithe bodies and deep, rumbling voices growling with lust.

Bucky was the only one that he'd felt comfortable enough to share that with, and Bucky had made it his life's mission after that to get him set up with the 'right' kind of girl that would banish all those thoughts from his head.

But Bucky was long-gone, and the thoughts were still there. And not just there but beating out a thrumming, passionate rhythm that was almost impossible to contain whenever he so much as set his sights on Tony Stark. He was a gorgeous man, lean and lithe, a bit shorter than Steve (well, if one wanted to call a good five inches 'a bit') with thick, wavy dark brown hair and feathery black eyelashes framing sharp, dark eyes and strong, calloused hands derived from a lifetime of working with them. His voice — somewhat deep and somewhat gravelly — sent shivers down his spine, especially when he'd set those dark, sharp eyes on him as he spoke them. He itched to brush the pads of his fingers against that neatly-groomed van dyke, run his thumbs over his cheekbones, comb his fingers through that dark, wavy hair that curled just the slightest in the back when it got too long…

The point of the matter was that he maybe had the slightest bit of a 'crush' on his teammate, and the last thing he wanted to do was to chance letting anyone — Tony in particular — find that out. Even if he'd heard that Tony was more of a 3 or 4 on the Kinsey scale (he'd had to look that up after he'd heard Clint use the expression, and if there was one wonderful thing about this new century he'd found himself in, it was that thing called 'Google'), Tony had never so much as hinted anything beyond amused interest in him — like he was something to unmask and take apart and figure out how he worked. He flirted, sure, but Tony flirted with everyone, even Natasha (he still wasn't sure how Tony was still alive). It was just his personality. So, any sly remarks or innuendo or lingering touches really meant nothing. Steve wasn't alone in getting those. Everyone did. Even Thor.

Steve had spent his entire life waiting for the right partner. He'd been good, done his penance, and patiently waited for that person that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was going to spend the rest of his life with. There was a time that felt like yesterday to him but was really several decades ago that he had tried to convince himself that that partner was none other than Peggy. She was smart, she was beautiful, and she was more than willing to call him out on his bull. She was everything he could have ever hoped for and more, and he wanted — oh, he so very much wanted — her to be the 'right partner.' And she could have been. He knew she could have been. He could have been happy. He knew he could have been happy.

But fate didn't allow him that, and maybe she wasn't his right partner after all. Maybe he didn't have one. Maybe his right partner had been lost to time — someone he hadn't even had the chance to meet because he'd downed a plane in the Arctic to prevent disaster.

And then he'd met Tony Stark, who had gotten under his skin from the moment they'd met, who'd irritated him and called him on his bull, and who didn't consider him a fragile relic or kowtow to him like everyone else did. Against his will, he'd found himself drawn to Tony like a magnet to steel, and it was only after the dust had settled, that alliances and friendships had been forged out of the fires of battle, that he realized that his feelings for Tony were much more complicated than he wanted to admit. He did not hate this mad, impossible, genius son of his late friend. He didn't even dislike him.

He was mesmerized by him.

The way he talked, the way his brain worked, the way he moved as he explained things, swiping at holoscreens and chattering like he didn't realize that everyone wasn't at his intellectual level and could follow without issue. He was intelligent and funny and, though he would deny it until he was blue in the face, kind and generous to those that meant the world to him. Which, as it turned out, included the group of misfit superheroes that called themselves 'the Avengers.' He'd opened up his home in New York to them, renovating the tower Loki and the Chitauri (and the Hulk, as well, and Bruce really did feel bad about that) had laid waste to and offering them space to set up their clubhouse for their 'super-secret boy band' (whatever that meant, but Tony had used it once, and the others had snickered at it, so he assumed it was a joke of some kind). Still trying to find his feet in this new world, he'd taken up the offer to stay as well, finding that he, too, had come to rely on this 'gang of idiots' (as Bruce had called them) for the support that he still couldn't admit to himself that he needed.

The only problem with living in the Tower was that he saw Tony on a regular basis, and it was difficult seeing someone he so desperately wanted and couldn't have. At the very beginning, it was because Tony had just gotten out of a relationship with Pepper Potts, a move that he knew had devastated Tony because he knew how much Tony genuinely loved Pepper no matter how they both agreed they were better off as friends. After, it was because, well, he just wasn't Tony's type. He'd been slowly coming to terms with that ('slowly' being the operative word here), and he never at any time let himself hope that maybe, _maybe _he was mistaken. There was no point in hoping that something that would never come to pass.

But he was, to some degree, a selfish man. He couldn't have Tony the way he wanted him, so he would take him any way he got him: meetings, sparring sessions, equipment test-runs, uniform fittings. Sometimes, as of late, he would just sit down in the workshop or in the lab and sketch as Tony or Tony and Bruce worked their science magic (and Tony had taken umbrage when Steve had called it that, cursing the very existence of the word 'magic'). More often than not, he would sketch the scene playing out in front of him, Tony always as the focal point. Even those times that he worked with Bruce, Tony was the focal point and Bruce barely more than a blurry background image.

So, the whole point of the matter was that he really didn't think he could stand being so close to Tony in so intimate a setting and not… Look, he could control his urges and impulses as well as anyone, so he wasn't about to compromise Tony in any way. It wasn't the physical aspect of it that scared him; it was the emotional aspect. Holding Tony in his arms, swaying with him to a romantic rhythm — his heart was sure to take it as more than it was, and he knew his heart couldn't take the rejection when Tony pulled away, said, "You're not terrible," and then laughed about it with him later on as though it had meant nothing to him. And it _would _mean nothing to Tony because Tony would have offered to do this with anyone. Tony pretended to be a heartless bastard, but he was anything but. Tony knew he felt adrift in this new world, and so he was helping to ground him in any way he knew how. Someone — probably Natasha — had told him about Steve never having learned how to dance, and knowing it was something Steve wanted, Tony had taken it upon himself to teach him. Because that's what Tony did. He gave because it was in his nature to give to the people he loved most. Steve just happened to be one of those people.

"I can hear you thinking from over here."

Steve shook his head to clear his thoughts, and he glanced over at Tony just as Tony glanced up at him. Their eyes met for only the briefest of moments — Tony really did have such beautiful, expressive eyes — before Tony turned his attention back to his work and said, "You don't have to hang around here if you don't want to, you know."

"Yes," he said without even thinking, and Tony paused a moment before glancing back up at him again.

"'Yes,' what? I don't think that was a 'yes' or 'no' question. I don't think it was even a question."

"I mean—" He made a face and scratched at his forehead. "I— If— if you wanted, we could, ah…"

Why? _Why _was he saying this? Why he was he going this route? Why? What had possessed him to take up Tony's offer after all? That's what he was doing, wasn't it? Taking up Tony on his offer? Asking Tony to teach him how to dance? Asking Tony to hold him in his arms and sway with him and—

"We could what?" Tony asked, innocent enough, but there was enough of a leading tone in his voice that Steve knew he knew exactly what Steve wanted but wanted to hear Steve say it himself.

He let out a sharp breath, his gaze cast to the floor beneath him, one hand on his hip and the other resting against the back of his neck. "I mean, if— if the offer still stands."

"To teach you how to dance?"

He must have been blushing because he felt heat flood his face, and he willed himself to get his emotions under control as he said, "Yeah."

"You want me to teach you how to dance?"

"If you don't mind."

He chanced a glance upward and sat Tony was still sitting at his worktable, but he was slouched back in his chair and giving Steve a cautious and questioning look-over, those sharp, dark eyes raking over his body, his mouth contorted into a flat line. He reached out and grabbed his grass- and-dirt smoothie (or whatever it was actually called) off the table and took a gulp, never once taking his eyes off Steve. Steve felt the heat spread from his cheeks to his ears, and he knew then he must have been burning bright red.

"What made you change—" Tony started to say but then sat upright and added, "Doesn't matter." He jumped to his feet and strode around the table. "So, you want me to teach you how to dance?"

"Nat did say you were a natural at it."

He shrugged as he moved closer. "Five years of lessons will do that to a kid." He stopped right in front of him. "So, really, the only thing you actually have to worry about are the slow dances you get stuck with at those benefits where you have to make nice with the dowagers and the princesses and basically anyone that has any influence in the powers that be that might support your cause.

Unless you're looking to hit up the clubs, in which case you're probably better off having either Goldilocks or Asshole Barton show you the moves, though I don't doubt for one second that they could both get you to embarrass yourself in five seconds flat."

"I—I don't want that."

"Did think you would," Tony said and made a move to assume a position then stopped abruptly. "Right, you don't— OK, so you're probably going to want to be the one to lead, yeah? So, you'll want to—"

He reached out and took hold of Steve's right hand and moved his arm so it was around Tony's waist with his hand on Tony's lower back. He then took hold of Steve's left hand with his right and switched so that Steve was holding onto Tony's hand, elbows bent and hands just below shoulder-height. He put his left hand on Steve's right shoulder. There was still some breathing space between them, and Steve wished to pull Tony closer so their bodies were flush with each other, and he wanted to curl his arm tighter around Tony's waist and pull his hand against his chest and hold onto him like he would never let him go again because he was right: Having Tony in his arms was a bad, bad idea.

It felt wonderful.

"So, this is the way it usually starts out. Doesn't have to stay that way, but we'll get to that later. And probably, you'll be standing a little closer to each other than we are—"

"How close?" he asked, daring to be brave.

Tony quirked his lips into an amused half-smile. "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to show you what you're in for."

He pushed his body against Steve's so that they were flush from chest to hip, and Steve took slow, even breaths to counter the accelerated heart rate being so close and so intimate provided. He just hoped no other parts of him would get the wrong idea about this — especially being so close to Tony. He'd hate for Tony to think — all right _know _— how Steve actually felt about him.

He couldn't take the humiliation that would come of it.

"J, want to queue up something Cap might like? Something slow?"

He glanced up to the ceiling as JARVIS said, "_Of course, Sir_," and the opening notes of a song began to flood the expanse of the lab. It was slow and maybe even a little sultry, and as the lyrics began, Tony said, "OK, this is where we start swaying to the rhythm."

He just nodded and tightened his hold on Tony's hand ever so gently, and though he was supposed to be the one in the lead, he followed Tony's and tried to match him movement for movement and sway for sway. He splayed his hand over the small of Tony's back, pressing against it with a gentle amount of pressure, pushing Tony closer to his hip, flush to the point that two had very nearly become one. He swallowed and tried not to focus on the feel of that or the scent of Tony that was a combination of sweat and metal and coffee and musky cologne that had just about worn off. He went to close his eyes to keep from staring down at the genius in his arms, but he stopped himself at the last second when he realized how that might look, and he instead darted his eyes around the lab, inspecting the various elements he found there. He let his ear tune in the words of the song again, and when it got to the chorus, he suddenly realized—

"I know this song."

"Do you?"

"Yeah, it was… It's from my time."

"Yeah, it is. I mean, not this version. I think this one's from the '50s maybe?"

He was about to remark that it was but one more thing he'd missed out on, but he decided not to spoil the mood.

"I thought it was one of the more romantic versions of the song," Tony added, which startled Steve. Why would Tony be concerned with romance? With him, anyway?

"I like this version," he said, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

"I had a feeling you might. You're more of a sap than you let on."

"I'm not a sap."

"It's not a bad thing. Now shush. We're supposed to be enjoying the moment."

They went quiet, the sound of the song filling the expanse once again, and Steve found that with the rest of Tony's body so close to his that it was silly to have their hands so far away. Tony's hand still in his, he pulled it against his chest, tight, firm, and OK, maybe just the slightest bit protective or possessive or maybe a combination of the two. Tony glanced at him in surprise, and he froze and waited for the genius to pull away from him and say, "Whoa, Cap, what do you think you're doing here?" but Tony's gaze went from his eyes down to his mouth, and Steve watched in confusion as Tony reached up the slightest bit and pressed his cheek against Steve's. Steve startled at that — that was not what he'd been expecting — but as the song shifted into another verse, he adjusted his arms just the slightest bit so that he was holding Tony as close as he could, his hand spayed wide and firm over the small of Tony's back, and rubbed his cheek against Tony's, the two settling into a rather intimate embrace. He didn't know what Tony's aim was here — maybe Tony was just playing along and showing him what he could expect the next time he did this with someone else — but he decided to take what he could from it. He closed his eyes, breathed in Tony's scent, and pretended, if just for a moment, that this wasn't only make believe, that Tony was his, that he was Tony's, that Tony felt for him even half of what he felt for Tony.

They stayed like that, swaying in time to the gentle rhythm, cheek-to-cheek, bodies flush with each other, and Steve didn't even realize the song had ended until another voice said from somewhere in the distance, "I can come back."

Both jumped away from each other at that, and he was reminded of that time that Peggy had caught him with that secretary. Well, that wasn't exactly it. That secretary had kissed _him_, not the other way around. He had just been caught up in the moment. Not to say he hadn't been caught up in _this _moment, but this one was a moment of his own making.

And he hadn't even been able to end it on his own terms.

"Hey, Brucie!" Tony said with a nervous laugh and scratched at the back of his head. "Yeah, sorry, forgot you were on your way—"

Bruce just smiled at them, a soft, knowing sort of smile that Steve took particular notice of. "No, it's fine. I, uh, forgot what I needed to bring, anyway. I'll be back in an hour or so."

He turned and left before either Steve or Tony could say a word, and Steve turned to Tony and said, "I hope he doesn't think—"

Tony winced away from him as if burned by his proximity, and a mask washed over his face. Steve hadn't even realized Tony hadn't been wearing one until the moment it reappeared. "Yeah, no, wouldn't want him to—" He coughed and went back over to his computer console. "I'm sure he didn't. I mean why would he? I just showed you—" He began to tap and swipe at screens, and Steve noticed he was very badly giving a nonchalant impression of trying not to look at him. "You good? You got what you needed?"

Oh, god, did Tony know—? Had he been that obvious? He hadn't said anything he shouldn't have, had he? Told Tony how good he smelled? How swell he looked? That he loved him?

What Steve meant to say in response, and what Steve _thought _he said in response was, "Yeah." What he _actually _said was, "No," and he only knew this because Tony startled like he'd just been slapped in the face and said, "Oh, well, uh, I know my method is kind of lacking, but I thought I did pretty well giving you a few basic—"

Steve didn't let him finish. "No! I mean, yes, you— I got that. I understood that. You're…you're a good teacher. But no, I," and he heaved out a sigh and said, "No, I did. I'm— I'm good. Thank you, Tony, for your help."

And he turned on his heel and made his way over to the door, his face burning in mortification, and just as he was about to cross through, Tony called out, "What about a coffee?"

He stopped and turned back to him. "Huh?"

Tony stood up from his computer, and if Steve didn't know any better, he'd say he was almost nervous, toying with one of those electronic rectangular things that were so prevalent. "A coffee. You know. It's what people drink. When they talk. With each other." He shrugged. "It's just a thought."

He exhaled a breath, and he hoped the slump in his shoulders wasn't as noticeable as it felt. He smiled a little, his insides crumbling. He was pretty sure he'd just been what he'd heard Clint term 'friend-zoned.'

"Yeah," he said, the word sounding sad and wistful to his own ear. Hopefully, Tony didn't notice. "Yeah, sure." And then, because he was a glutton for punishment. "Now?"

Tony glanced at his watch, and he looked around the lab and said, "J, close up shop. Cap and I are going out for coffee."

The lights flickered off while the computers and other electronics shut down, and Tony made his way over to Steve and said, "There's a Starbucks about five hundred feet from here, but I actually know this great little place in Brooklyn. Free trade, organic, independently-run and all that rigmarole." He put a hand to the small of Steve's back, firm and, if he didn't know better, just the slightest touch possessive.

"Are you sure?" he asked as Tony pushed him out of the lab, and the door closed behind him. "You seemed kind of busy, and Bruce said he'd be back—"

Tony pulled out his phone, and Steve watched as he tapped his thumb against it at lightning speed. "Oh, Bruce won't be back for the rest of the day. Got caught up with a thing, as it turns out. Just gonna be the two of us." He peered up at Steve from under dark, feathery lashes as he stuck his phone back in his pocket. "I hope that won't be a problem."

Steve swallowed, and though his mind screamed at him to stop, to put an end to this before he got himself hurt, his heart pushed him right along.

"Not at all."

"Good," Tony said, and before he knew what was happening, Tony's hand slid from the small of his back to the curve of his backside and gave it a squeeze and a gentle but firm pat. He marched off as though nothing had happened, but Steve stayed rooted in his spot, floored, wondering if he'd imagined it, and, if not, wondering what it meant. He stayed there, mouth agape and head tilted just the slightest, until Tony turned back to him and, with his lips twisted in a smile and something salacious twinkling in his eyes, asked, "Coming?"

For the first time in his life, Steve decided to be a good soldier. "Right behind you."

**Author's Note:**

> The song they dance to is the Flamingos' version of 'I Only Have Eyes For You' from 1959. It originally debuted in the 1934 film _Dames_ and was sung by Dick Powell. The title comes from a line in the song.


End file.
